This ‘Prank’ Video has the Potential of Crashing Your iPhone

Just imagine the number of videos you open on your smartphone every day. In most cases, the number are quite large and mostly include a multiple number of near spammy videos circulating on WhatsApp, Hike and chat boxes of other popular messaging apps. Well, what if any of these videos freezes your smartphone and renders it useless? It will definitely be a nightmare none of you would like to think of. That said, a report now reveals that a link to one such video can really crash your spanky new iPhone.

The video link in question is apparently sourced from Sina-Weibo, a Chinese social network website. Precisely speaking, the video can be found on Miaopai a video sharing app for the social networking platform. At first glance, this might look like just another video that plays quite normally on the video player on your iPhone, however, it will soon render your device useless. Within minutes of playing the video, your iPhone will start slowing down and would continue to lag. Then, all of a sudden the device will freeze and neither your TouchID or Power button would function anymore. That said, you need not worry at your iPhone can be brought to normalcy by a simple hard reset.

The bug is said to exploit an issue in the media handling function of iOS. It’s worth noting that the exploit apparently works on all iPhones starting from iPhone 4 to the latest iPhone 7, which effectively means that even an old operating system like iOS 5 is vulnerable. In fact, the older the smartphone lesser the time it takes to lock down the phone. That said, it doesn’t seem that the video has any adware of sorts, at least as of now, however, it’s too early to judge the exploit. It’s also recommended that you don’t try this prank with a friend of yours, but we are quite sure you would face hard times resisting yourselves from doing so.

Apple’s iPhone lineup of devices has quite a history of such strange bugs that exploits issues in its software. Just a few months back, in January this year, an exploit emerged wherein opening a link on Safari would crash the browser and force the smartphone to reboot all of a sudden. While this bug effected Android devices too, but the number of reported cases were quite negligible as compared to iPhones.

Sayan Sarkar Author Sayan is a technology aficionado who shares a keen interest in the booming startup scene in India. Prior to joining TechPP, he has had stints at GizBot and IBTimes UK. Currently based in Kolkata, Sayan is pursing a degree in Dental Surgery.